Various connector manufacturers make several versions of surface mount (SMT) connectors that have an SMT ground plate or bar formed in the center of the connector. Specifically, the body of the SMT connector covers the ground plate such that the ground plate cannot be hand soldered to a printed circuit board (PCB) during installation. As such, repairs to this type of SMT connector on a PCB have to be soldered using an SMT reflow oven to solder the entire connector at once, rather than using hand-held soldering equipment.
However, printed circuit boards requiring repair to the SMT connector may have many other components that are not designed to go through a SMT reflow oven. That is, when a repair is made to attach a new SMT connector having a ground plate, the entire PCB must be placed in the SMT oven, and then the other parts that melted in the SMT oven must also be replaced. Thus, the repair process is not cost effective, and the components on the PCB are subjected to a high temperature cycle in the oven, which can degrade the longevity of the components and the PCB assembly itself. Therefore, there is a need to repair SMT connectors on a PCB in a cost effective manner, and without risking damage or degradation to other components on the PCB.